In Memorium: In search of Talker at the Grand Light Torch Tour

The last time I saw Talker alive was last summer. That June day — full of reckless vainglory — Talker had attempted to scale the the falls in the Lower Falls Gorge: to out patch Sam Patch. Instead, Talker slipped away into the foam. The last I saw was his soul ascending upwards through a hole near the McDonald’s on Lake Avenue. Unlike Patch whose body was found frozen in an ice pack, Talker’s remains remain undiscovered.

After his demise, I returned to my staid life as a high level manager at a prominent local corporation. At the same time — to preserve the memory of my sunken comrade — it was I who arranged a trust fund to pay all required fees whereas Talker will live in perpetuity on the internets.

Periodically, I return to that final story (that I had mournfully penned in memorium). The views, facebook shares and comments have trickled down near zero. The only traffic left are zombie websites offering super force viagra.

I still do sometimes think of our fallen fool. Late at night, after dispensing my corporate duties, I take to my study and my stamp collection.

Though not given to his monomania, I feel Talker-as-muse. Licking and placing my stamps into phantasmagorical patterns, I unburden my pent up imagination. Brazen and bold in my glued tableauxs, I sense the equal thrill Talker felt as he looked downward from the precipice of the Gorge.

Last night when driving along South Avenue, I thought again of him upon seeing a sign for that evening’s Grand Torch Light Tour in Mt. Hope Cemetery. As he would have gone, so too would I. But upon arrival, the event was sold out. My inhibited self would have gone home, but I was in search of Talker.

I remember he had told me of a place in the iron fence surrounding the cemetery with a gap just large enough for a man to squeeze through. Actually, an eccentric physics professor at the University of Rochester with wild white hair had installed a green rope allowing easier progress down the hill and into a parking lot. Every day, the professor would absentmindedly amble from his apartment on South Avenue through the cemetery, shimmy down his rope, and from to there to his physics lab on the river campus.

I also remembered how Talker had turned his Spanish-American War dissertation into a serialized screen play, Mr. Crane’s Vivid Story. I found the work to be uneven and unpolished, much like what Cora Crane had said to Steven Crane about his own screenplay in Scene 21:

As for Black and Blue, it has all the defects and grandeur of its creator [Crane]. The Roosevelt parts are your fawning for literary fame at the expense of your art. On San Juan Hill is you [Crane] the absurd and flimsy egoist.

Adelaide’s invention of the “Cinquain” ranks up there with George Eastman and the Brownie. The Grand Torch Light Tour in Mt.Hope Cemetery 10/15/16

As I am a man of ample means, I plan to produce and shape his screenplay into my own vision, Mr. Tucker’s Vivid Story.

When I reached the main gate, sans ticket, I faced a moment of decision. Bow out timidly and abandon the search? No — hurriedly blending in with the throngs taking the grand tour — once more into the breech.

Looking too gleeful and self-satisfied for my taste at the terror he had sown, my brother peered upon the scene of the crime. Audrey felt this was the time for Talker to finally be rendered mute if not moot.

Inside the cemetery was lonely without my mute comrade. But I had to carry on Talker’s torch.

Then, feeling Talker’s spiritual presence, I was drawn to a crucifix inside a mausoleum. Inside, the guide told us a story about the first Mayor of Rochester. Suddenly, behind me I heard a gurgling sound.

Turning, I saw a man in a blue umpire’s rain jacket with his head and hand bobbing in a pool of water. The figure looked uncannily familiar. But as I approached, the man — if it was a man — vanished.

Talker of the Town is a continuation of conversations begun in three Democratic Chronicle blogs: Make City Schools Better, Unite Rochester and the Editorial Board.
Since February 2013, urban education has been the primary focus. Now, the flowering of topics is limited only by our imaginations.

Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.